This page is devoted to instruction comments, internet posts made discussing some of the concerns and questions people raise on a daily basis, and other gems and ideas. Some I authored: some are from other sources. There is no particular order to the headings--but posts within a heading are intended to follow logically.
"THE ONE PLANE SWING"
My comment:
The downside can be that your body type either can't do it comfortably hence won't play well with it, or that you just plain CANNOT at all. I don't believe I've ever seen a true one plane golf swing.
Why force a theory on yourself when your own practice swinging mindlessly teaches you what plane works best for you - after you practice in two extremes: standing tall with an up and down arm swing vs. bent over with a shoulderturnonplane swing. Find the middle of what IS COMFORTABLE without checking how "single" the plane.
I feel single plane but that doesn't match what observers see me do: because I swing my shoulders on plane; but the clubshaft tops out at the back of my neck, not low at my shoulders.
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Another: During the time from the top of a swing to impact, where the spine simply cannot BE perpendicular to the plane of the hands and clubshaft, IT DOESN'T MATTER if the spine can't be perpendicular (with a 90 degree angle between top of neck and ball on the ground): we humans are extremely adaptable, and what WILL occur is the HANDS DIRECTING THE BUTT END OF THE SHAFT DIRECTLY DOWN AT THE TARGET LINE, and THAT plane IS a flat, single plane.
Moreover, the shoulders move IN WAYS OTHER THAN perpendicular to the spine: they move independently UP AND DOWN, so that if you stand erect and move your hips to the left without turning THE RIGHT SHOULDER MOVES DOWN, NOT AROUND, and the left shoulder moves UP, not around, SO THAT A SIDEWAYS MOTION OF THE HIPS CAN BE USED TO MOVE THE SHOULDERS ON PLANE WITH THE HANDS EVEN THOUGH THE SPINE IS QUITE ERECT in a real golf swing.
The ingeniousness and adaptability of the human body with the universal joints of the shoulders makes it possible for a DOWNswing to have a "unitary plane" without conforming to the THEORETICAL and erroneous notion that to be "a single plane swing" you must be bent way over so that your clubshaft is perpendicular to your spine.
Not at all.
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DISCUSSING A "PLANE BOARD" USED BY MIKE BENDER - A BOARD SITTING ON THE TARGET LINE, SLANTED UP TO MATCH THE ANGLE OF THE CLUBSHAFT AT ADDRESS: AS DESCRIBED HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WtzWAoZ6Zk
My answer to that video clip is as follows:
I see problems with that video clip instruction: "it seems like a good idea at the time" but it doesn't match reality.
1) when a club is SWUNG vs. being held at address, the angle between the hands and the shaft HAS TO CHANGE due to the trememdous pull of the clubhead outward from the chest: THIS STRAIGHTENS THAT ANGLE from what it was at setup: the wrists are more uncocked at impact. SO THE HANDS ARE HIGHER AT IMPACT, and this means that at IMPACT the shaft is NOT AS FLAT, IT IS STEEPER, than setup. So trying to match the plane board is futile and counterproductive.
2) What is swung is the CLUBHEAD, and IT is sensed by the central neuromuscular sensors in the skin of the hands and the connectors through the body to the part of the brain that recognizes where things are in space (proprioception). So the golfer needs to, and will without intention, focus ON THE HEAD, THE CENTER OF MASS OF THE SWINGING OBJECT IN HIS HAND, and NOT on the shaft itself. THE HEAD moves in its elliptical/flat plane, NOT the shaft.
3) If you spin a club suspended between your two palms at the grip, the hosel SWINGS AROUND THE CENTER OF MASS OF THE CLUBHEAD. In the same way, THE HANDS ARE NOT IN LINE WITH THE CLUBHEAD AND SHOULDERS WHENCE THE ARMS PROCEED: SO THEY ALSO SWING OUT OF THE WAY, GIVE WAY, AS THE CLUBHEAD'S MOMENTUM ARRIVES AT THE BALL, since there will STILL BE some angle at the joint (as seen from down the line), inasmuch as the left wrist simply cannot uncock to a pure 180* angle with the shaft.
4) Asking a pupil to think of something WRONG IN ITSELF, to say nothing of something OTHER THAN the basic object of his swing, is to deflect the imagery of how he must swing to an irrelevancy. "It seems like a good idea at the time," but in actuality it is taking focus AWAY FROM WHAT WILL WORK EFFICIENTLY for him, which is, HIT THE BALL WITH THE CLUBHEAD IN SUCH AND SUCH A PATH. Of the clubHEAD, not the shaft (and of course, the center of mass isn't even ON the shaft line at all: it is a couple inches "north" of that at impact...
5) The ARMS follow more closely a "plane board" than does the shaft; furthermore, a true plane board doesn't work either, since the pivot point of the left shoulder ALSO MOVES DURING THE SWING.
6) There is a center: the C-7 swing center. The shoulders move around IT--circle no. 1. The left arm swings around the left shoulder, circle no. 2. The left hand is swung by the left arm--the end of that circle. The club is swung by the left hand--circle no. 3. And the center of mass is swung by the shaft ON ANOTHER circular arc--circle no. 4. So a true plane structure would have a bunch of circular thingees THE NET RESULT OF ALL OF WHICH WOULD BE A CLUBHEAD ESSENTIALLY FOLLOWING ITS OWN FLAT PLANE from top of swing to ball in an increasing spiral ellipse. Far more complex in its structure than "a plane board," but UTTERLY simple in its elliptical orbit: a rock on the end of a string.... A clubhead thrown by the center of the body.
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DISCUSSING "A PAUSE AT THE TOP FOR MORE POWER"
When a playground swing changes direction in a free swing from up to down, what might be thought to be a "pause" is simply response to gravity at the rate gravity does its thing. And not only do the arms and club fall: SO DOES THE BODY WEIGHT fall from right foot to left foot.
IF MOM SHOVES THE PLAYGROUND SWING ABRUPTLY AS IT COMES BACK TO HER, IT THROWS THE WHOLE THING INTO WOBBLY DISRUPTION; IN ACTUALITY, SHE CRADLES IT FIRST BEFORE HELPING IT IN ITS ACCELERATION. SHE DOES NOT SMACK IT OR TRY TO PUSH IT UNTIL IT FINISHES ITS OWN TRANSITION BY GRAVITY -- AND THEN SHE HELPS IT!
So the "pause" of Els, Couples, and many others, even when it is very small, IS AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY for keeping a smooth swing. And IT IS PERMITS THE TIME NECESSARY FOR THE LOWER BODY TO SHIFT; IT IS NOT ONLY ABOUT HOW OR WHEN JUST TO START THE CLUB DOWN; IT IS ABOUT ALLOWING TIME FOR THE BODY TO BE PLACED INTO A LEVERAGE-EFFICIENT AND ALIGNED POSITION FOR THE HIPS TO MOVE THE SHOULDERS CORRECTLY TO MOVE THE ARMS DOWN WHICH HOLD THE HANDS AND IN THEM, THE CLUB, MOVING THEM DOWN ON PLANE, instead of over-the-top.
It keeps the horse in front of the cart.
There is something else that happens, of course, besides the "stopping." It is the momentum in the body "rocking" foot to foot, and "as the batter steps into the pitch, he accumulates or avails himself of the power of his WEIGHT pulling the bungee cord that connects his left hip to his left arm to his left hand and to the club. If there is no rocking and "falling of weight" TO the left side, the pull is less.
And THAT is established by the forward press which activates the pendulum of the body weight (mid-section), as well as the tempo of the swing.
Hence the reasons we take so intuitively to Daly, Els, and others of their kind of "easiness." Even completely unsophisticated laymen admire those swings for their fluidity, and in my opinion for what they intuit as harmony and cooperation with nature, vs. fighting it...
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In response to the comment that "the swing starts from the bottom up," I replied:
That "bottom first" movement is, in everyday lingo, called "walking." In golf it is called "weight shift."
It's purpose in GOLF is to create momentum that causes force to get to the arms and club. The dog wags the tail.
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In response to the concept of a forward press, and starting the swing with a dynamic shift of weight instead of a dry lift (which itself triggers WRONG reactions as well as introducing and maintaining tension that works against the totally free relaxed muscular state needed at the top).
And, it is not only about mechanics as much as it is neurological reaction, triggers, impulses, response.
And THEY get involved when the nerves and synapses and whatever are already active and electrified, as it were.
I think anyone athletic would agree with this: runners jog in place before their gun-start: swimmers get pretty warmed up first; and no golfer of any experience goes to the tee without a lot of movement.
But the very act of the explosion of energy in a 1/2 second swing is the big one...that's the secret of "supple quickness" as opposed to rigid slowness occasioned by tension. It is the reason Snead and others advocate the lightest possible grip on the club.
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How to habituate a backswing plane:
Instead of looking for "feelings" to direct your motion, make reference to VERY SPECIFIC PLACES for your hands and for the clubshaft.
For example, if your chosen swing plane is at the base of your neck, TAKE YOUR LEFT HAND AWAY FROM THE BALL PRECISELY PARALLEL to the target line and when your hand is level with the ground AIM YOUR LEFT THUMB AT THE BASE OF YOUR NECK. That directs the clubshaft correctly. So instead of trying to "memorize feelings," your points of reference are real places with specificity: so all you do is the same as you do in everything else: you direct your hands etc. "visually" where you "SEE" they need to go.
There is no such thing as muscle MEMORY as such: there is familiarity, and with some restrictions, proprioception is a big aid: but the easiest way to get something of this order is with COGNITIVELY DIRECTING your hands and the club to specific discrete PLACES. Then you can rehearse and get used to the feelings and become more "natural" much sooner than groping blindly at feelings that elude.
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Rate of improvement
has an enormous relationship to
1) what you are trying to accomplish, and more than that, 2) ON HOW YOU ARE
HELPED TO GO ABOUT DOING THAT NEW THING.
Some images and devices/aids are IMMEDIATE in how they convey the info. Some are
vague, close, but not as incisivie.
I am always fiddling, for example: this morning I took a shaft and attached a
stick of 1"x2"x 12" wood to the bottom of it; the wood has a pointed end - and I
attached it an an angle, so that you can swing it with the point acting like an
arrow, and the BACK end of the wood "drags behind" - when the clubshaft is
vertical, the attached piece is at an angle "getting dragged behind" with its
"arrow tip" pointed along the arc of delivery on the way down, and at the target
as the club comes into impact. IT TEACHES A NO-ROLL RIGHT WRIST ACTION (it is to
be used first with the right hand only) AND A WAY OF SHOWING HOW TO DELIVER THE
CLUBHEAD DOWN ONTO THE TOP of the ball, instead of "around" with a rolling
action. After impact you roll, but the no-roll hand action is IMO the most
powerful and accurate. It is the Mike Austin hand action (right wrist folds all
the way back on plane). And it permits and illustrates DRIVING THE BASE OF THE
RIGHT HAND, THE ELBOW, THE SHOULDER AND SIDE DOWN ONTO THE TOP OF THE BALL AND
THROUGH IT, creating a powerful driving action into the BACK of the ball (as
opposed to a cut shot scoop from across the ball creating a high slicing
floater).
So what you do and how you go about reinforcing the right things require IMAGERY
THAT FOCUSES ON THE TRUE CORE ESSENTIAL.
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"The GOLFER MUST ACCUMULATE HIS
MAX VELOCITY BY STARTING EARLY WITH A
FORCEFUL CONSTANT FORCE / HENCE ACCELERATION, so for all intents and purposes he
is acting to 'shove everything down' around the center as though pushing the
hands of a clock to move them forward. He doesn't wait to apply force when the
hand reaches 5 oclock
to hit a ball at 5:30.
q:
Can you explain the difference between your statement
and what is known as hitting from the top?
I have Mike Austin's video with Mike Dunaway,
and he seemed to say the downswing feels like
hitting from the top or releasing early, but that
it's not because the lower body is leading.
Did i misinterpret what Mr.Dunaway meant?"
My answer:
The difference often missed relates to WHAT PRESSURE is being applied to the
golf club at the start down. The club is a shaft with a butt end and a stick.
You can move it lengthwise (as though it was elastic and you were trying to
lengthen it) like pulling on a rope, and you can push against the SIDE of it
like a lever.
BUT THERE IS A CLUB, AND THERE ARE ARMS with hands at the end.
AT THE TOP OF THE BACKSWING AND TO TRANSITION, THE PIVOT DRIVES THE ARMS DOWN.
The hands GET MOVED AROUND by this in the same way that the tip of the hand of a
clock is moved when the motor of the clock advances it FROM THE OTHER END. THAT
is what happens in the ARMS AND HANDS. Now, when the shaft of the club sits
perpendicular to the left forearm, THE SHAFT OF THE CLUB IS PULLED LENGTHWISE -
as a rope it is being tightened. The good golfer will simply HOLD ON to the
shaft, the grip cap will be moved in the direction of the arc transcribed by his
hands, and his exertions will be TO MOVE THE GRIP CAP AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. BUT
this means two things: HE MUST NOT PUSH AGAINST THE SIDE OF THE SHAFT at this
time: at all! That is casting, and it is what is commonly condemned because it
DOES MAKE THE CLUB WASTE its catchup energy long before impact. But the force
against the grip CAP in effort to move IT as forcefully as possible is what I
was talking about. THE RIGHT HAND PUSHES THE FULCRUM END of the club - not the
side of the shaft, and it is THIS pressure or force that I was referring to in
the first paragraph I copied from your question.
As far as the clubSHAFT is concerned, as the golfer approaches the ball and the
release OCCURS NATURALLY because the hands are transcribing a circle (the
centrifuge principle), he might actually at that time be assisting the SHAFT BY
applying sideways pressure to it with the palm of his right hand and help to
"drive the clubhead onto the top/into the back of the ball. I don't know how it
is possible to "think" - it has to be sensed and found or realized from sheer
instinctive neuromuscular response to intentions with far greater subtlety than
is possible from cognitiively directed effort.
I don't know what context your Dunaway comment is taken, but I can affirm this
about it: the force of the pivot IMMEDIATELY AND FORCEFULLY drives the arms,
hence the grip cap, around in its arc, from the get-go. NO force is to be
applied to the SIDE of the shaft at the top. IF any force is EVER applied to the
side of the shaft for anything other than support, it would have to happen
during the release, which by its nature will NOT BE too early, since inertia
prevents it--UNLESS the golfer wrongly DOES push against the shaft early on.
Most times when that occurs it is because the golfer's GRIP COMPROMISES HIM and
his right hand "is in the way" because it didn't fold away enough. It is like a
barrier to a full 90 degree wristcock. OR some golfers will swing back with such
force that the club BOUNCES at the top and uses up, or starts to waste, the
wristcock immediately. It is a lost cause long before the swing is undertaken
for two reasons: too tight a right hand and/or a position of the hands
preventing a wristcock of 90*, and such a fast backswing that the club,
shoulders or back HAS to bounce because of the undue stress and strain felt that
needs relief. A good backswing does not compromise one's comfort or ease any
more than a quarterback puts himself in a gnarled mess of tension as he
transitions to throw a pass.
Make sense?
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My previous post is
pretty convoluted.
1) At the beginning of the downswing, THE ONLY FORCE APPLIED ON THE CLUB ITSELF
should be to move the shaft LENGTHWISE, as though you were trying to stretch the
shaft.
2) The PIVOT is what applies this pressure to the club: i.e., by the hips moving
sideways, the shoulders rock; the right shoulder drop brings the left arm, the
right elbow, and both hands down in an arc around the middle of the radius of
the arms going around.
3) ANY PRESSURE AGAINST THE SIDE of the shaft like a lever will dissipate the
right angle that gets loaded up at the top, what we call "wristcock." It is
clearly the relationship of that clubshaft and the left forearm most responsible
for the production of clubhead speed. Just try swinging a club without any!
4) DURING RELEASE it is likely that a good golfer will unconsciously, or even
very consciously ALSO apply leverage force of his right PALM, THE WRIST
UNFOLDING, to HELP drive the clubhead down into/atop of the golf ball. But this
is not something cognitively driven because it is so instantaneous and
athletic/neurologically microscopic..as it were. If he were to make such an
exertion against the side of the shaft early, in an attempt to help the clubhead
speed up more, he would LONG SINCE have used up the mechanical advantage of his
clubhead catchup and by the time impact occurred, the club will possibly be
moving no faster than the hands are...which is the opposite of what is desired.
5) Inertia keeps the wrists cocked long into the downswing, if the golfer isn't
pressing against the side of the shaft. And late in the DS the centrifuge
principle occurs: the clubhead "gets thrown" and "tries to catch up to the
hands." It is impossible to stop it because the hands move in a circular path.
It is the same as what happens when you take a corner in the car fast: whatever
is on the seat gets thrown to the side because ITS INERTIA OR MOMENTUM was going
in a certain direction before you turned and it wants to keep going IN that
direction unless it is held (in a seatbelt if it's in the car).
A fast backswing or a tight grip or both will MAKE the wristcock unfold at the
top because of the pressure on the shaft in the transition. If a grip doesn't
permit the wristcock to stay "unmolested" because the right hand is squeezing,
it will uncock the wrists way too early. Or if the club and arms "bounce"
against the top of the swing as the DS begins, THAT also dissipates the
wristcock. Again, losing tremendous advantage long before impact occurs.
Sorry for the convolutions 1: perhaps this convolutions 2 is easier to read.
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THE WORDS "STRONG" AND "WEAK " DESCRIBING A GRIP
I agree that the "strong" and "weak" are
misleading terminology for newcomers to the game, who haven't "gotten some of
the lingo" yet.
:I agree that the "strong" and "weak" are misleading terminology for newcomers
to the game, who haven't "gotten some of the lingo" yet.
"Closed" and "open" get closer to the reality: but since the arms roll counter
clockwise based on our anatomical makeup, and since the position of the clubface
at impact is what is at issue, I think we need even MORE descriptive words. I
find myself using "slice grip," "hook grip," and "neutral" or "center" grip.
Because those words connect the dots.
Having said the word "slice grip" to a slicer who IS using too weak a grip and
where that is the reason FOR his slices, I THEN SHOW HIM HOW IN A DRY SWING WHEN
HE STOPS AT IMPACT TO LOOK AT HIS HANDS AND CLUBFACE, HE DISCOVERS THE CLUBFACE
OPEN. Then when I change his hands to a neutral or stronger grip and he sees in
a dry swing how the clubface is square at impact position without him having to
do anything during the SWING to square it, he grasps the concept and will
remember from then on what is going on.
And of course, conversely for someone with too strong a grip.
This issue is one of those things newcomers are often confused about, and
clearly many of them experiment with how tight they squeeze the club....thinking
that is what is meant. I am aware always that as a golf teacher, it is MY
responsiblity to "talk eskimo to eskimos and french to the french", not "french
to the eskimos"...